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Friday, August 29, 2008

Last night, we got a phone call from our social worker, Jan that was a phone call you do not want to get. It was around 9 o’clock and I was home alone because Ken was out getting gas and some groceries we needed. Anyways the phone rang and I answered it, immediately Jan said is Ken there and I replied no, knowing that something was wrong. Thoughts were racing through my head and I kept thinking surely our birth mom didn’t pull out and change her mind. Jan continued to explain that the birth father is now interested in raising the baby. The thing is… is there are 2 possible birth fathers and so we are in a MAJOR dilemma. The other possible birth father is in Arizona and has already signed his rights away. The one that wants to be involved now is in Houston and is newly married and already has a 2 year old with his NEW wife. Needless to say I was numb… I didn’t know how to feel. I honestly felt like I was going to throw up and then I started thinking … How am I suppose to tell Ken this. I went into the bathroom… yes with the phone… still listening to Jan because I thought I was going to puke. Ken then walked in and I just handed him the phone. Jan repeated everything to him and I called my parents to come over. Our world was turned up side down by one phone call. I was flooded with emotions… I for some reason am embarrassed (don’t know why but I am… even though all of my friends tell me that is ridiculous I am), I am sad because of the obvious, upset and confused because I thought all our “ducks were in a row” with paperwork and what not at the agency, and most of all I am just confused on how to feel. Ken says we pray for the best but prepare ourselves for the worse. Here is what is going to happen….

When the baby is born (we will not be there.. which we were going to be there before this BUT have decided to opt out just in case it turns out that the dad is Houston)… The baby will have a DNA test and will go into foster care for about 5 days (this breaks my heart but at the same time he will be in foster care with someone from the agency). When the DNA test comes back we will either be told come get your baby or sorry Houston is the dad.

We are just asking that you keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We are keeping the faith that whatever is meant to be will be. We are so hoping that Arizona is the dad and know in the end that we are not in control. If this baby boy is not our Drew we know that our Drew is out there somewhere.

I also need to say thank you so much to my dear friends and family (love you mom and dad and Susie) for staying up with me last night so I could boo whoo with you and for not mentioning it at school today. It was very hard BUT I made it all day without crying BUT lost it at the end of the day (after all the kids were gone). Once again my friends were there to pick me up (not literally) and give me encouragement. We will get through this believe me we have been through worse.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers all of you are dear to us. WE LOVE YOU!!!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

OK sorry for the late post… we have been VERY BUSY… to say the absolute least. I started back to work on Tuesday and the kids come on Monday. Our school is in the middle of a remodel so we have NO AIR. YEP you read it right…. NO AIR. I have big windows but who wants to open a window in the mid summer and we have had lots of rain lately and that just makes it swamp like. YUCK!!!! Anyways between getting my room ready oh and did I mention I have 24 students on my list. TWENTY FOUR!!!!! That is over the limit, the limit in 3rd grade is 22 BUT get this as a 3rd grade team (there are 4 of us that teach 3rd) we have to be over our limit for about a month before they will hire a new teacher. 2 of us are at 24, then Patti is at I think 22 or 23 (STILL AT THE LIMIT) and the new teacher is at 21. So the reason they make you wait is to make sure all of your students show up. I am almost certain one of my kids is NOT returning and at Meet the Teacher Night (YEP we had meet the teacher night with NO AIR) one of the moms told me that her son will only be here for the first 2 weeks. Let’s pray for a new teacher because even a class of 22 is large.

I am side stepping because this is FUNNY!!!!During Meet the Teacher, we were all sweating… imagine about 16 people in my class, no air, dropping off supplies… the sweat was rolling off of everyone!!! Well, I was talking to one of my parents (did I mention that I have 9 siblings (I have had their brother or sister in the past) and 3 teacher kids) that I have had before and we were talking about her son well…. She was dripping with sweat and took both of her hands and wiped her face in an upward motion towards her forehead. OK imagine talking to her and she does this wipe the sweat thing and now where her eyebrows use to be are now smeared zig zagged lines of eyebrow pencil. She had wiped her eyebrows up her forehead. I was horrified… what do I say. I mean it looks like she put mascara on her eyelashes but continued it up her entire head. Her husband was with her so I kindly excused myself and left him with the duty to tell her about her missing ~ now spread up her forehead ~ eyebrows. All of my school family (close friends that work with me) think that story is hilarious… I agree. BLESS HER HEART!!!

OK now to what you are probably waiting for… OUR VISIT with the birth mom.Let me back track. I must admit I had terrible thoughts of her being ogre like and maybe have a 6th grade level of education, thoughts of her not going to the dr. and maybe smoked… who knows… I am telling you I set my expectations real high. I was so amazingly surprised and relieved to have walked up to Olive Garden and not see Shrek’s wife. Her name is Jenna and she is so cute and tiny. I was so excited to see she was exactly the opposite of what I was expecting. Jenna is wonderful. She has brown hair and brown eyes and she is VERY PETITE. Needless to say she is perfect. I guess I didn't set my expectations high so I wouldn't be dissappointed BUT Jenna is a dream come true.

I will tell you now that I will leave some and probably most of the details out because it is not appropriate, nor do I feel comfortable, about telling all the details. Some things we will keep to ourselves… just because. Don’t feel left out I am going to share enough BUT for the privacy of Jenna and her family and Drew we feel this is best.

BACK TO THE MOMENT of relief. She is very petite and all baby. Will we met at Olive Garden, her choice. We brought Jan (our adoption social worker) and she brought her mom and her case worker, Melinda, who also works with our agency. It was a nice lunch and we talked a lot. Jenna’s mom sat by me and shared a family photo album. That was nice. The more we talked and shared the more I realized how truly blessed we are to have Jenna. Jenna is in her early 20s and is very articulate. She loves to read and write poetry. Jenna is what I like to call granola.. very earthy and natural. She loves animals and the #1 reason she picked us is because we love our dogs like they are our kids. #2 was I am a teacher and #3 was I love celebrating ALL holidays #4 we have a large family that celebrates with us. After Drew is born she plans on returning to college to pursue a degree in forensics. She is NO dummy. We just fell in love with her. She is very direct and very open and honest. After Olive Garden, we went back to the agency to talk some more and met her grandpa. Her mom and grandpa are so sweet and asked us a few questions. Jenna let me touch her belly and told me she would email me her ultrasound pictures. WHICH SHE DID!!! They really like the name we picked out and we are even invited into the delivery room. Our entire family is invited to the hospital. Jenna has been going to the dr. since the very beginning… she doesn’t do anything to harm herself or the baby and even cut out a lot of sugar because of a high sugar count at the beginning. Anyways ~ we talked a little more found out some real neat connections like where her family originates and we even share some family names (that was strange have about 3 names in common with same relationships) For example, if her uncle was a John my Uncle is also John.) (this is a part that we won’t go into detail BUT believe me it was really neat). Jan said when you meet the mother of your child you will know and this was a sign. Well I think that is about it. She goes to the dr. Tuesday and will probably be given an induction date for the next week. SOOOO who knows. All we know is that we have been truly blessed to have been given Jenna as our birth mom. We thank you ALL for your continued support and caring words. WE LOVE YOU ALL!!!! Who Knows our next post could be WE ARE PARENTS!!! Aghh that reminds me I still need to hang shelves and paint a dresser .. OK BYE!!!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

OK so we can finally tell the world…. I just got off the phone with my OWN PR person…YEP …ME… I have a PR person assigned to me…WHY? You might ask..WELLLLLL Ken and I entered a t-shirt design contest for the WNBA (Professional Basketball for GIRLS). Anyways our design won.. GRAND PRIZE Baby. We were hoping to give the whole prize to mom and dad

Let me catch people up here that don’t know my mom’s obsession with the Silver Stars. My mom along with 3 of her other friends dress up in various costumes for every game. (click on the links to see them in their best.. you'll have to scroll through the pictures BUT you'll see them) They are KNOWN as the Blues Sisters (refer to pictures). Before every game they parade around the stadium and actually take pictures with some of the fans. They are nuts. My poor dad just sits in the background…he is referred to as Blue Sister #4’s hubby. My mom and her crew even filmed a video with the mascot. I am telling you they are like the crazy football fans you see on TV. I swear if they were men they would have their bellies painted.

OK back to the story… BUT since I did the majority of the design I have to be there. We won an all expense paid trip to the WNBA finals and some other stuff like our t-shirts.. I think we get 3. This should be interesting… I HATE to fly and the finals are in October and the baby will be here in Sept. OH MY. Anyways we have known that we have won for a week now and it is too exciting. My PR rep, Kim, told me they are releasing my info to all the local media and all of the WNBA teams so I might be receiving some calls. It is too funny. The best part is we really entered to give the prize away to Blues Sister #4 ( or what I like to call her …mom) if we won BUT we figured this is a once in a lifetime opportunity so I am going to suck it up and hope the playoffs are here in San Antonio.. so no flying needed… YEAH RIGHT. We can’t post the design on here because of copyright laws and what not but it is really cool. (if I say so myself) ~*TOOT TOOT*~ (me blowing my own horn). The really neat thing is Ken and I worked on it together. I got interviewed by my PR person too and that was funny because I have only been to like maybe 5 games and I really only know like one player. So when the question came up who is your favorite team …of course I answered “San Antonio Silver Stars” and then who is your favorite player, “I said Diana Taurasi” I couldn’t think of a single other player… JUST KIDDING MOM…( for some reason mom can’t stand her) I said “Becky Hammon” she is also my husband’s WNBA crush...that’s OK I have hockey crushes. So as you can see we have had a very eventful last few weeks. We will keep you updated with more info as I get it. I wonder if Don Harris will call… HMMMMM ( he is a local sportscaster that doesn’t like hockey but you bet his chubby booty was at the rink when the Gretzky came to town.) I have a bone to pick with him…. Talk to ya’ll later… LOVE YA~ Me

Monday, August 11, 2008

Last night, we went out to celebrate the upcoming adoption. It was so nice. We went to my FAVORITE place Camino Ranch. I LOVE IT!!!! It was just a nice dinner with the family and a good meal too. We are so excited for our upcoming "little dude" (that's what Ken calls him). We have been shopping and registering like crazy. I have even been online looking at how to decorate onesies because I am VERY picky about what to dress him in. ASK MOM... I nearly had a panic attack in Babies R Us because of the lack of "COOL" clothes for little boys. ANYWAYS~ I am getting through that and we are counting down the days until we get to meet our birth mom and then we are so over joyed about the arrival. My heart is beating fast and hard as I write this too. It has all happened so fast... we really were not expecting it to be so fast. 6 years of trying to become parents is finally coming to a close. We can't wipe the smiles off our faces. It is also so neat to see all of our family and friends so excited for us. We received tons of emails and phone calls. What a week.. what a joy... what a blessing!!!

We are also excited that 2 other families that were in our adoption group also got "THE CALL" last Monday and they too are going to be adoptive parents real soon. It was so nice to hear that they were picked too because we really bonded with them at the orientations and have kept in contact with them through email. Meredith and Brian are getting a little boy ~ due in October & Carol and Kurt are getting a little girl due Aug. 16th ( I think). It makes us so happy to know that when we go to out adoption retreats, we will all have babies about the same age. It was a very BLESSED August 4th.

Anyways below are some pictures of our little dinner celebration.

Here we are so grateful for our family and for being chosen to be a little angel's mom and dad. We are so excited we can hardly stand it.

THANKS ~ Mom and Dad for a great celebration dinner!! It was nice to have my brother and his family there too!! Josh and Lyssa ~ Thanks for your support.... to Lyssa I am glad we have been able to get closer the past few weeks.. it means a lot to me and I know it means a lot to Josh and mom and dad!!!Mom and Dad with Kaleb.We just want to send our Kisses out to everyone that has sent us prayers and good wishes. We really appreciate everything EVERYONE has done for us. WE ARE TRULY BLESSED!!!!p.s. Ken is going to kill me when he finds out I put this picture of us on here... he thinks I deleted it!! I think it is cute!!

Monday, August 04, 2008

Today I went to the school to get some work done. I am fresh off my Mississippi vacation (got back yesterday evening) and decided to go up to school and start getting my room ready. When I got there I talked to some fellow teachers and friends and then got started moving furniture around and what not. WELL we don't have air conditioning BLAHK and it got toooooooooo HOT to keep working so I went into the office to say goodbye and to cool down (they have a little air). Right when I was going to leave I got a phone call. It was Jan from the adoption agency. I thought she was calling about a baby we were interested in. Then she started talking about how we were picked by a birth mom... I went blank I heard something about it being a boy and then dogs and August 18th and 20th and September 8th. I felt like I was going to pass out. 2 good friends were in the office with me and they caught on to what was going on. I was seriously in shock. Jan kept asking are you excited and I kept saying yes yes. She said to call Ken and tell her what date we could meet up. I got off the phone STILL in shock and called Ken. NO answer of course (he’s at work) and so I text him... I wanted to text him something clever but I was at a blank. I think I wrote " it's a boy we got picked" I was still numb and had to sit down. my girlfriends were all so excited I was sweating bullets stuff was racing through my head. I was delirious. I talked to Ken briefly to find out what date was good with him. He said the 18th. I called Jan back and talked to her again about details. I still was in LA LA LAND….but got most of it written down … SO here is the low down.

It is a boy

he is due... September 8thwe were picked because we love animals and because I am a teacherwe will meet the birth mom and her mom on August 18th in HoustonI have the birth mom’s name and age and other stuff but we are going to keep that private for right now.

Well that's where we are right now. I got the phone call around 12:20 and now it is around 6 and I am still in shock. I had to go to my parents house after school and tell them and I still felt like I was going to faint. I stayed there a little bit and now I am home still trying to let it all sink in!!! What a blessed day August 4th turned out to be. Of course we will keep you updated. LOVE YOU ALL!!!